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TMCNet: NYPD: Caller ID scam rips off more than $15 million

[May 14, 2009]

NYPD: Caller ID scam rips off more than $15 million

MELVILLE, N.Y., May 14, 2009 (Newsday - McClatchy-Tribune News Service via COMTEX) -- The latest technological wrinkle _ a card that lets the user change the number that appears on caller ID _ helped a sophisticated band of thieves rip off more than 6,000 unsuspecting credit card holders of more than $15 million, authorities said Thursday.

The credit card and identity theft scam started in Queens, N.Y., and includes 35 suspects, including 32 Nigerian nationals, most of whom live in the city, according to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

The scam, though, is anything but local.

Some of the victims live in Canada, and many of the stolen credit cards were sold overseas, in Japan, Dubai, Italy, India and several other countries, authorities said.

The suspects have been charged with enterprise corruption and a number of other offenses, including criminal possession of stolen property and of a forged instrument, grand larceny and conspiracy. They face up to 25 years in jail if convicted.

Key to pulling off the scam, authorities say, is the spoof card, which Brown calls "the equivalent to a burglar having the key to your house or apartment." These cards, which can be found on the Internet, allow the owner to display any telephone number when placing a call.

As a result, those with caller ID don't know the true identity of the caller, and the suspects were able to activate stolen credit cards by pretending they were calling from the victim's home telephone.

"When you call a bank call center, if they can see what phone number you're calling from, if it looks like they're calling from the victim's home phone number, it obviously puts the customer service representative at ease," said Deputy Insp. Gregory Antonsen, head of the New York Police Department's Identity Theft Task Force. "It allows for an (exchange), and oftentimes, the person could elicit information from the customer service representative that is more detailed than they normally give out." But even with the arrests, authorities admit they still don't know a key piece of the puzzle: How did the suspects manage to have the credit cards mailed to them and not to the legitimate customers? Once they had the cards, Kelly said, the thieves "squeezed every dime" from them, obtaining extra cards for relatives and even making minimum payments in an effort to increase the line of credit.

Brown said it was not clear if spoof cards are illegal, but his office is working to determine that and to see if they can be regulated.

___ (c) 2009, Newsday.

Visit Newsday online at http://www.newsday.com/ Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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